The Races of the Old Testament

by A. H. Sayce

Excerpt

Egypt. They drew consequently from life, and it is astonishing what a close racial resemblance exists in every instance between the members of a group which comes from the same locality, in spite of the individual differences of detail which the artist has been careful to note. Though the individual face may have peculiarities of its own, the racial type presented by it can never be mistaken. Of course in the case of the Egyptians them selves the ethnologist has an assistance which he does not possess in the case of their enemies or allies. The portraits of the natives of the valley of the Nile which they have bequeathed to us in statuary or in painting, are Supplemented by the mummies in which the actual features of the dead are still preserved. Professor Virchow's measurements of the skulls of the Pharaohs, whose mummies were found at Deir el-bahari, illustrate the advantage this has been to the anthropologist.